Anyone else finding the 2nd 6months of BF harder than the 1st??

[mishkamoo]

DS EBF til 6m. Has had intermittent but fairly persistant oral thrush since the early days but doesn't seem to affect his latch/cause him any probs and doesn't cause me any pain (touch wood). Had a bout of mastitis which cleared up with ABs (but then thrish recurred!) but altogether coping quite well.
I really want to carry on til he's 1 as I don't want to have to give him formula but I'm def more self-conscious now about feeding him in public, which is starting to make it more difficult. Not sure if it's all in my head, but I think people are generally less accepting of BF in public with a wriggly bigger baby, than with a newborn/tiny baby. Anyone else found this?
Also, his latest trick is practising his pincer grip on my arm or boob while feeding! And have just had 2nd bout of mastitis/blocked duct which was way more painful than the 1st time.
And he's still never slept through the night so the pressure from HV, mother etc is to FF at night....
As I said, I'm determined to persevere, but just wondering if anyone else had any similar experiences.

Some of this sounds exactly the same as me and my DD - EBF til 21 weeks, have had mastitis 3 times, want to carry on until she is 1 and really don't want to give her formula, having felt fine feeding her as a small baby in public I have definitely felt more self-conscious now she's bigger, and she LOVED to pinch my arm, neck and general chest area really really hard while feeding. She first slept through at 8 months and it's still only intermittent.

So...words of encouragement would be (and DD is 11 months tomorrow):

• she seems to have stopped the pinching of her own accord (which was really really annoying me and even making me quite angry at times), although I did try moving her hand every time she did it, and saying "no" sternly

• she has never had any formula, but did eventually sleep through (sometimes)

• I dropped to only 3 feeds a day, and could usually manage the middle-of-the-day one at home, or in somewhere nice and private like a fellow mum's house or a baby group. But I have to say no one has ever actually given me a weird look and certainly never said anything when I've fed her in public.

• She's now on one feed as cow's milk from a bottle (the middle-of-the-day one) - the official advice is that it shouldn't be their main drink, but I figured that she is getting loads of nutrition from her food, and still getting 2 good breast-feeds a day (first thing and bedtime).

*Because of the mastitis, I'm cutting down the breastfeeding really slowly. As I'm planning on stopping breastfeeding when she's 1 (and I go back to work), I've been gradually replacing some of her breast feeds with cow's milk, so by her 1st birthday she will be entirely on cow. I should point out the official advice is breast or formula til a year, so this has to be a personal decision.

Good luck - it does sometimes seem that you can't avoid formula but I do think it's possible.

Can't help with much, not at 6 months yet and still not sure what I'm going to do about bf then. But, my dd is 17 weeks and is a real pincher, I've found giving her a muslin or bib in each hand stops her pinching me. Just thought it might help you with one part of the problem.